Forum Bonus Art

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 6:39 pm

-geezer voice-

Wheeeeeeeeeell back in the day when Ah joined up wit the Vee Cee Ell, It were the Velan Central Library, dedicated to a species Ah never even bothered to look up, and it were good.

-cut voice-

But then, it got bigger. And bigger, and BIGGER...

And at last it was renamed to reflect the nature it had acquired: the biggest furry art pile known to man: the Vixen Controlled Library.

Maximuscoolman · Post by **Maximuscoolman** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 12:36 pm

Allan wrote:And, no matter how much better Deviant Art might be than ye olde VCL, I probably won't migrate for the simple reason that I'm too lazy to remember another freakin' password. Sorry.

I find that both are slow. But DA has regular page fuck ups.
It's not a case of which is better, but which is worse.
PhotoBucket has provided reliable image hosting for me, I'd rather use that than VCL or DA. If I ever get round to doing some art, I'll just stick it on my KS account though, unless I do LOADS, you're allowed to have art on your KS site as long as 90% of the space you're using is in the comics folder.

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 9:05 pm

http://vcl.ctrl-c.liu.se/vcl/Artists/Al ... abonus.gif

Each face took up the whole PDA screen when it was drawn. It's a tiny little drawing area but I kind of like what the scale does to my linework. Plus I can draw any time I have a spare 30 seconds; an elevator trip can be used as a quick art break.

The real reason I bought the thing was to keep track of the horrific amount of crap I have to remember in a given day, for which this little baby works astonishing wonders. I used the little claendar thingy today to get the dates for the first three pages of the finale right before uploading them.

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Sat Oct 30, 2004 8:47 pm

http://vcl.ctrl-c.liu.se/vcl/Artists/Al ... dcomic.gif

I'd kind of like to ask the forum:

How fast is too fast? How -far- are you willing to go down on the scale of art quality to get more story?

How slipshod is -too- slipshod?

Nitwit · Post by **Nitwit** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 4:39 am

allan_ecker wrote: How fast is too fast? How -far- are you willing to go down on the scale of art quality to get more story?

How slipshod is -too- slipshod?

Hard question to answer, as comics are a combination of both writing and
art, and they need to gel. Bad art can work, but only, in my opinion, with certain types of writing. Conversely, really great art can be ruined by poor writing.

From this example, I'd be disappointed if you were to continue Umalut House with that level of art. For a different comic, it might work, but I'd need to see more to decide.

DetailBear · Post by **DetailBear** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 8:35 am

Honestly, that might be a bit far down the scale. If I remember correctly, a regular strip was an hour our two?

What's a 15 minute strip look like?

RandomScribe · Post by **RandomScribe** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 9:20 am

Well, I can't see it since it's on VCL, but I'd have to agree with Nitwit--Umlaut House really works best at the level of detail it currently has. That said, I think you're funny enough to make a <i>really</i> minimalistic comic work. You could write each strip in three minutes and update every eight hours. Speed-the-Comic.

--RS

Hat-Kun · Post by **Hat-Kun** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 10:19 am

I could put the pictures up on my webspace if you should like (And if The Allan doesn't mind), Scribey. I doubt BlueYonder have been blocked, but just in case, would everyone who can't see the zombie please raise their hands.

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 10:43 am

Hey, there's an IDEA, DB!

I'm going to post some images at various "time levels" and we'll see what everyone thinks. I'm not sure that the current system, full color, full page, is sustainable at one a week, and I'd like to keep being at least weekly, if at all possible.

(Also I seem to have a mild to moderate case of comic block and am having real trouble getting myself to work on actual comics. Most of my artistic output over the past week has been decorations for my door, which I may scan in eventually, but -most- forms of computer use are starting to increasingly feel like work as my workload at grad school picks up..)

Also:

I in no way forbid the redistribution of my artwork, so long as my name's on the site somewhere so people can get more of the same. Link, post, and modify away, I'm an amateur who'll do anything for applause.

Maximuscoolman · Post by **Maximuscoolman** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 12:21 pm

I think it would be best just to do one strip per week, and put in as much time as you could or would like to spend. With beating a dead comic strips between proper projects, it wouldn't put pressure on the buffer either.

Hat-Kun · Post by **Hat-Kun** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 12:45 pm

Hmm. I was just going to upload the pictures and give direct links to them, but now I've been inspired to do a five-minute job of coding a page tp put them in. I'll get right on it.

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 2:07 pm

Excellent work, my minion!

Yeah, MC, that's probably pretty likely.

I guess I'm posting stuff like this because the color finale's bogging me down a bit; I'm already done with really -doing- Umlaut House, so coloring these last strips isn't as much fun as doing new material.

AND, to make matters worse, the "new" material, Unit Zero, is stuff I storyboarded over a year ago, so most of the comics I've been doing lately have almost felt like doing fan fiction.

In the end, it's very much a "wait and see" kind of thing. The 7-minute comic is an experiment. There will be a LOT of experimentation on this site over the next year, including (probably) some infinite-canvas experiments and lots of wierd formats. In the case of the 7-minute comic, however, it's -too- little time. I didn't even allow time to chose a proper image size. I just took the size available and started scribbling furiously. The result was definitely not worthy of a weekly update, but it did let me see what It looks like when I push the throttle past the red zone.

(It now occurs to me, DB, that if you want to know what 15-minute comics look like, all you have to do is check out any episode except the most recent, which required an extra five minutes for coloring the fourth panel.)

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 6:23 pm

Speaking of experiments, here's the latest "time trial" comic.

27 Minutes, including making a decision on how to do speech baloons.

The_Fox · Post by **The_Fox** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 8:39 pm

allan_ecker wrote:Speaking of experiments, here's the latest "time trial" comic.

27 Minutes, including making a decision on how to do speech baloons.

*grins* I like it. The only thing of note is that in the first panel, he looks like he has no shirt on. I don't know if that's a bad thing or not...

- Jarylan Vulpine

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 9:04 pm

OR, I could spend the same amount of time I spent on that entire strip on one image:

Nyamaza · Post by **Nyamaza** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 9:04 pm

*grins* I think the 27 minute test is pretty good. And personally, I LIKE shirtless avatars.

*glances hastilly at Saundra* MALE! shirtless MALE avatars!

DetailBear · Post by **DetailBear** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 9:56 pm

allan_ecker wrote:Speaking of experiments, here's the latest "time trial" comic.

27 Minutes, including making a decision on how to do speech baloons.

That's legible, intelligible and I can read Saundra's expressions. Seems ok to me.

Allan_ecker · Post by **Allan_ecker** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 11:37 pm

Nyamaza wrote:*grins* I think the 27 minute test is pretty good. And personally, I LIKE shirtless avatars.

*glances hastilly at Saundra* MALE! shirtless MALE avatars!

For the reccord, Saundra isn't an avatar. She's a gestalt.

A gestalt of what, you ask?

My ex-editor, a shrewd, demanding woman who was always bitching about my poor plot decisions, is part of her character. Another is me. Saundra's also the embodiment of my desire to better myself. There's a lot of stuff that makes Saundra, well, Saundra.

The Masked Retriever, on the other hand, is a talking head with my voice. I wear him like a mask; the avatar does not have its own personality. It's just a cartoon representation of me. The Retreiver IS an avatar. Saundra ISN'T.

Volair isn't an avatar either, although I used his image as such for a long time.

Hat-Kun · Post by **Hat-Kun** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 2:15 am

Completed, tested, fully working.

Enjoy

Although why I took the decision to call him The Allan I don't know...

Nyamaza · Post by **Nyamaza** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 5:38 am

I still think my response is justified. Avatar OR gestalt, with the look Saundra was giving me I wasn't taking any chances.

Though along those lines... Any possibilities of some shirtless male gestalt (aka Volair) art? I sware, I'm a horrid artist, but I've been tempted recently to try drawing the wonderfulyl deranged vulp.